My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
In the galleries of prints (accessed by clicking the links immediately below) I am also adding fresh images offered for sale. If you get lost in the maze of links, simply click the "home" button to return to the blog discussions.

Friday, 4 November 2016

Developmental prints for reproducing Veronese’s “The Vision of St. Helena”

Charles William Sherborn (1831–1912) and Lumb Stocks (1812–1892)

Three
progressive stages/states on different plates and by different artist in
creating the print, “The Vision of St. Helena” after Paolo Veronese (aka. Paolo
Caliari and, as lettered in this plate, Paul Veronese) (1528–1588).

Plate 3 (representing
stage/state 3) lettered with publication details and with the artist’s name in
the plate (lower centre) by Charles William Sherborn, etching with engraving on
cream wove paper, (sheet) 32.3 x 23.7 cm, the image is trimmed for publication in
“Art Journal” (1884) without platemark, (image borderline) 27.2 x 16.3 cm

Condition: crisp
impressions in very good condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, abrasions,
folds or significant stains but the sheets have age toning and there are light
marks).

I am selling these
three original prints (the first two are most likely photogravures) showing the
developmental stages in creating a print for publication for a total cost of
AU$160 (currently US$122.76/EUR110.69/GBP98.40 at the time of this listing)
including postage and handling to anywhere in the world. If you are y interested
in purchasing this exceptionally rare set of prints, please contact me
(oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make
the payment easy.

I hope that
these prints are self-explanatory in the sense that they represent the three
stages in preparing a print for publication.

The first stage
is to etch the design as a guide for the next step of engraving.
Artists usually begin a plate with etching as it is quicker than engraving.

The second
stage is to add engraved strokes to “soften” and model the forms portrayed. A simple way to determine which lines are etched and which are engraved is to look at the start
and finish of a stroke. Etched lines are usually “square-ended” whereas
engraved lines tend to be tapered.

The third stage
is to add publication details. This information is usually arranged below the
image borderline with details about the title and publisher lettered at the centre,
the artist who designed the image shown on the left and the artist who executed
the print shown on the right.

Interestingly,
there were exactly three states in Sherborn’s published print and these details
may be found in Charles Davies Sherborn’s (1912) “A Sketch of the Life and Work
of Charles William Sherborn”, p. 29.